| RolStoppable said: My post must have hit a nerve, because it keeps getting quoted. What I got out of this thread is that the most favorite explanation as to why Sony doesn't have more mega franchises is due to Sony sucking at marketing their games. That reasoning isn't sound, but it does what it is supposed to do: protect the games. In other words, there's nothing wrong with the games. I don't believe that it's all a marketing issue for Sony. I believe it's multiple issues. I think Sony has never been huge on multi-player / party games (Nintendo and Microsoft have done this well in comparison). They also have made some poor decisions in the past in terms of bundling. (Something Nintendo has done well dating back to NES). It's not the games being bad. You don't have the most successful console of all -time by producing bad software. Period. You don't win two consecutive generations easily by having bad or even average software. But the games themselves are the problem. None of them with the exception of Gran Turismo are really genre-defining, so nothing that Sony makes becomes huge. Their games usually borrow elements from already popular games. Sure, Sony's games are polished, but they lack the wow-factor of offering something new. This isn't a Sony only problem, it holds true for pretty much every major publisher in the entire industry. See this logic is horrible though. Tomb Raider was a 'genre' defining when it came out on PS1. Totally unique. Nothing really on the market compared to it. Yet it failed to reach, amazing sales status. It had good sales but not 'spectacular' sales (Halo/Gran Turismo/Mario etc). This still doesn't explain why Halo is successful and Kill Zone isn't close to as successful. Halo: CE wasn't genre defining. It was actually just a fun game for consoles. Beyond that, it did virtually nothing that any PC gamer hadn't seen for years prior. It still sold gangbusters despite this though. NSMB Wii certainly wasn't genre defining. It certainly didn't do anything that other games before it haven't. You can say Little Big Planet is not a good platformer till you're blue in the face, the fact of the matter is, it was an excellent platformer with creation tools to boot.
Do I think that GeoW was the first TPS? I said that it redefined its genre. If that isn't clear enough, in order to redefine a genre, games of that kind have to exist already. So no, I don't think that GeoW was the first TPS. Devil May Cry wasn't the first of its kind either, but it made its genre popular years before GoW. Halo changed the FPS genre on consoles and other games still take inspirations from it to this very day. Killzone brought nothing new to the table, at least not anything that other developers would be eager to imitate. Re-defined, in what ways? What did Gears of War do that other games before it hadn't? Blood? Gore? The Chainsaw? I mean what exactly was it that 're-defined' the genre? The cover system? Devil May Cry certainly wasn't the first of it's type, nor was it even the best selling in it's genre. (Again poking more holes in this logic). Onimusha was before Devil May Cry anyways.
Gran Turismo redefined its genre, no other racing simulation before it offered so many licensed cars. So games that do something outstanding have a chance to become mega franchises while games that do not have no chance. Since Sony mostly uses ideas that have been done before and polishes them up, their games just sell well, but not spectacular. Was Gran Turismo the first company to use licensed cars? Wouldn't offering more licensed cars just be an evolutionary step for each one of these companies? The fact of the matter is, Sony has marketed, bundled, polished Gran Turismo for a mainstream sales product. And has since the game arrived on shelves. |
The fact of the matter is, Sony has always offered a variety of games for a variety of consumers. This has been their strategy from day one. Offer some games for everybody and see where it gets you. RPGs for the RPG crowd, sports for the sports crowd, shooters for the shooter crowd, etc etc. They also have been the kings of launching tons and tons of software. So much software that it's really hard to keep up with it. In the past two generations, the Sony system might have 20 games worth owning. (Across a variety of genres) where as the Nintendo/Sega/Microsoft/Etc Platform has 5-10 at the most. This again forces the userbase into one converging direction.
Early this generation, Sony was falling into that trap. They weren't producing tons of software (Not like they were capable of) they just weren't up to speed. But as this generation has worn on. Sony is pumping out software (And good solid software) left and right.
For example, I had a lot of fun with Kill Zone 2, Loved Little Big Planet 1, Long time fan of Gran Turismo, etc etc. Yet from November till February I am going to have Gran Turismo 5 / LBP2 / Kill Zone 3. I also will have Move in September. (This doesn't even begin to count the Third party software which may or may not be good. I'm not saying this lineup will be for everyone (Some people might hate LBP and KIll zone 2 or whatever combination you wish. But the truth is, there is just tons of software for everyone to play from all walks of life.
I don't believe the competition provides nearly the same effect. Microsoft fans have Halo Reach / Kinect / Gears from September till March. And that's about as big of a lineup as they could ask for.
Sony systems have birthed more original, genre defining games debut on their system than any other system in the past two or three generations as far as I'm concerned. Some sell very well, Some sell solid, Some sell very good for their genre, some don't sell well.
As we have seen though, Genre defining and absurd sales are not always hand in hand. A lot of that has to do with the marketing involved, the game type involved, does it include multi-player, is it easy enough / appealing for everybody to play? Where does your primary user-base reside? (Japan is more into RPGs than America for example, America is more into FPS). These are the factors that lead to heavy sales for specific games and consoles.
Halo is successful not because it's anything new or genre defining. Because it was a very good game on a system with very few titles worth owning. It was an American company with a pre-dominant American userbase selling to a pre-dominant FPS crowd. It included multi-player and it became that game that if you owned an Xbox you atleast needed Halo.
Microsoft is a king at throwing money at marketing (Moutain Dew/Doritos/Movie Theatres/Wal Mart /etc) and pushed this even further. This is something that Sony would do to a much lesser extent. By building the hype off of an already solid userbase / fanbase. They have managed to turn a good game into this cultural phenomenon giving it a lot more sales than any normal game would get. (Just like Call of Duty).
